It has become increasingly desirable, in the field of games, to be able to simulate sports closely such that the strategies of the sport being simulated are carried over into the game and the mental skill of the human player is challenged. As such, many efforts have been directed at producing games that closely simulate team sports including football, hockey, and soccer, and individual sports such as skiing, auto racing and more.
These efforts have produced mechanical games, computer aided games, and video games. The current sophistication of electronics and computers has enabled production of computer aided and video games which simulate sports closely and require strategic adeptness for success. These games are limited, however, in that they do not offer a physical embodiment of the players or the field or surface upon which they play. Rather, these games illustrate the players and fields visually through a two dimensional video screen. This visual embodiment takes away from the overall feel of the sport being simulated. In particular, for example, a video football game does not offer the rugged, exciting feeling of the contact sport of football. While past mechanical games have offered physical replicas of the players and a physical setting of the sport being simulated, they too have limitations associated therewith. In particular, past mechanical games have limitations in the directions of movement of the physical players and do not offer multiple players whose movements are controlled independently. For example, manual mechanical soccer games include soccer players which are affixed to rotatable bars and which are movable widthwise along the playing field. As such, each soccer player on the field may only be rotated to kick the ball and moved back and forth widthwise across the field. No one soccer player can be moved lengthwise across the field while dribbling the ball to score a goal. Similarly, no past mechanical football simulation games offer a physical player who can carry the ball lengthwise across the field and dodge defensive players. As such, the true feeling of playing football and soccer are not generated by playing these past mechanical games which are absent a player or team which is moveable lengthwise across a field.
Accordingly, a general object of the present invention is to provide a sport simulation game in which a physical player may be operable and manually controllable to move lengthwise and widthwise over a playing field while avoiding obstacles on such playing field.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a sport simulation game in which obstacles or defensive players on the playing field are operable and controllable to move at least widthwise to impede movement of an offensive player.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a sport simulation game in which an offensive player is operable and controllable to move lengthwise and widthwise over a playing field and a set of defensive players automatically move back and forth widthwise across the playing field when the offensive player moves lengthwise in one direction over the playing field.